I’m ambivalent about Taylor Swift. I’ve liked that she stayed classy when it came to clothes and not doing the drinking, drugging, partying scene. Given that the teenage girls in my neighborhood like her music, I’m glad she hasn’t been a slut.

What I don’t like about her is her whiny songs. More than that, I don’t like the way she dates immature young men and, having gotten material for a new whiny song, dumps the young men and then publicly “outs” them as immature young men. There’s something very mean-spirited about her approach to men (or really, boys) and music.

There’s a big hoo-hah in Colorado, because a 6-year-old boy feels like a girl. His parents, out of respect for his feelings, are raising him as a girl. The school district was not impressed. It stated that, for bathroom purposes, if you have a penis, you have to use the boys’ room.

I can actually see both sides. To the extent this kid marches to the beat of his own drummer, he’s at serious risk of being attacked during (or because of) trips to the boys’ room. The school, however, is correct that, as long as the boy’s bodily functions are channeled through male body parts, they risk push-back and lawsuits from allowing a boy in the girls’ room.

Perhaps the parents should think about homeschooling, which can be an excellent solution for square pegs who don’t fit in the public schools’ round holes. Although the Left would like to deny it, there are some problems the government can’t fix, and some situations that are incapable of equal outcomes.

But why I am telling you this? The Monty Python crew dealt with precisely this issue about 25 years ago:

Washington’s Birthday was a busy day for me (it was also my Mom’s birthday), so I never got around to posting last week’s Watcher’s Council winners. I’m posting them here and now, along with a link to the Council members’ fascinating forum discussing how far American states can go in banning sharia.

Yesterday, regarding Bob Woodward’s openly stated claims that Obama’s White House bullied him and that Obama’s conduct amounts to madness, I made this prediction:

Woodward is very much mistaken if he thinks the current generation of media types will support him in the long run, if he continues to attack Obama. If he doesn’t step back and start to toe the party line, the Obamabots in the media will shred his reputation, blackmail him (if they can), and generally reduce him to Sarah Palinesque pariah status.

Honestly, it wasn’t that impressive a prediction because it falls in the same category as predicting that the sun will rise tomorrow in the east or that water will . . . wait for it . . . flow downhill. Still, to the extent I made a prediction, I’m pleased to report that I was absolutely correct.

Obama “senior advisor” David Plouffe went on Twitter to say that Woodward has become too old to matter. Other current generation reporters, the ones who confuse sycophantic propaganda with old-style investigative reporting, were equally vicious and/or dismissive of this one-time journalism icon.

Though no one’s disputed Woodward’s reporting, the media’s Cult of Obama began pushing back against the Watergate legend even before he dropped the bomb last night that he had been threatened by a top White House official.

But when that news hit, many in media immediately chose to protect Obama by ridiculing Woodward, questioning his motives, and/or dismissing his reporting.

Meet the members of the Cult of Obama…

Politico White House reporter Glenn Thrush:

Wonder if Woodward has humped up his book sales from GOPers, ie Amity Schlaes
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) February 28, 2013

—

BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith:

Wish I could claim credit for this observation by a friend: “In which Bob Woodward shows he too can master the new media landscape”
— Ben Smith (@BuzzFeedBen) February 28, 2013

The above is just a small sampling of the media push back against once of their own who “went rogue.” You really need to read all of them to understand how quickly a Democrat icon can become Sarah Palin if he is deemed a heretic. (And I use the word “heretic” deliberately, with all its religious connotations, because what we’re seeing here is a religion, with Obama as the God-head.)

Oscar Pistorius — the Blade Runner — was indicted for murder in South Africa, after he killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, by firing four shots from his bedroom through the bathroom door. Pistorius claimed he was acting in self-defense. The prosecution contends that he and his girlfriend had a violent argument, that he beat her head with a cricket bat, and that he then intentionally shot her to death (although firing shots through the door seems like an inefficient way to do it). Presumably a trial will help reveal a truth, if not the truth.

In any event, Joe Biden has clearly been following Pistorius’ killing career closely, because Biden has now stamped his imprimatur on the Pistorius school of self-defense (emphasis mine):

F&S: What about the other uses, for self-defense and target practice?

V.P. BIDEN: Well, the way in which we measure it is—I think most scholars would say—is that as long as you have a weapon sufficient to be able to provide your self-defense. I did one of these town-hall meetings on the Internet and one guy said, “Well, what happens when the end days come? What happens when there’s the earthquake? I live in California, and I have to protect myself.”

I said, “Well, you know, my shotgun will do better for you than your AR-15, because you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door.” Most people can handle a shotgun a hell of a lot better than they can a semiautomatic weapon in terms of both their aim and in terms of their ability to deter people coming. We can argue whether that’s true or not, but it is no argument that, for example, a shotgun could do the same job of protecting you. Now, granted, you can come back and say, “Well, a machine gun could do a better job of protecting me.” No one’s arguing we should make machine guns legal.

Wow, Joe! How can you be wrong on so many levels? First, the shotgun has a much harder kickback than the AR-15, so people, especially lightweight people (such as women), can’t handle it better than the alternative. Second of all, firing a gun into the air as he advises is illegal. And third, shooting through the door means you’re shooting blind.

Obama is also showing his Chicago-political roots. Woodward, moving very slowly, is beginning to understand that Obama cares nothing about leading the nation, but is, instead, concerned only with gamesmanship. Fortunately, Woodward has a big reputation and a bully pulpit, so his doubts are making waves. However, Woodward is very much mistaken if he thinks the current generation of media types will support him in the long run, if he continues to attack Obama. If he doesn’t step back and start to toe the party line, the Obamabots in the media will shred his reputation, blackmail him (if they can), and generally reduce him to Sarah Palinesque pariah status.

In Chicago, the people die in the streets, but the politicians keep riding in their gilded coaches. Obama is bringing that same model to the states as a whole. Let’s just hope that it doesn’t become deadly on a national scale.

To be honest, I have no proof whatsoever that a singer named Morrissey has ever done drugs. But to the extent he’s a brainless wonder, I’m thinking that maybe, just maybe, drugs explain this:

Never shy to make a controversial comment, “Bigmouth Strikes Again” singer Morrissey has claimed that “homosexual men would never kill other men”.

The 53-year-old singer, made his claims in an interview with an online magazine for teenage girls. While discussing war, he suggested that if there were more gay men, there would be fewer wars.

“War, I thought, was the most negative aspect of male heterosexuality,” he said. “If more men were homosexual, there would be no wars, because homosexual men would never kill other men, whereas heterosexual men love killing other men.”

Apparently Morrissey isn’t big on reading papers. If he was, he might know about Jeffrey Dahmer, who not only killed men, he also ate them.

Gandhi is revered because his policy of peaceful resistance brought down the British Empire’s century’s old rule over India. It’s true. It did. But what few are willing to acknowledge is that this tactic worked only because he was using it against a moral nation, one that had been financially and emotionally depleted by two world wars in quick succession and that was increasingly removed ideologically from the concept of Empire. Had he been dealing with an aggressive, hungry imperial nation — England in the 18th century, Stalin, Hitler, etc. — the outcome would have been very different.

My point is that we achieve our victories, not just because of our own efforts, but because of our opponents’ make-up. And this is where AIPAC comes it, for it has suddenly discovered that it has no say in Washington. As Lee Smith pointed out, AIPAC hasn’t gotten much done lately:

This weekend, more than 10,000 pro-Israel activists, Jews and non-Jews alike, will gather at the Washington convention center for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual policy conference. These friends and supporters of the U.S.-Israel bilateral relationship will hear from members of Congress and the executive branch who will all testify to the singular influence that AIPAC, as the pillar of the pro-Israel community, wields in the capital of the free world.

But just how powerful is AIPAC if a man who refers to it as the “Jewish lobby” and has defiantly claimed that he is not an “Israeli senator” is slated to be our next secretary of Defense? And, most significantly, how much influence does the lobbying organization actually exercise if it can’t carry the day on the single issue that’s been at the very top of its agenda for over a decade: stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

Despite an operating budget of more than $60 million, on the most crucial issue facing Israel’s security, AIPAC has lost the policy debate. The winners include those who believe you can’t stop a nation from getting the bomb if it’s determined to do so, those who think the Iranians have a right to nuclear weapons, and those who argue the Iranians can be contained—among them, our new Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

Smith blames AIPAC’s deafening silence regarding both the Hagel and the Brennan nominations. He considers this a tactical failure. I believe, though, that AIPAC’s inability to have a say in the debate about Hagel goes beyond tactics and represents a much deeper problem for Israel and her friends in America.

Up until 2008, AIPAC was accustomed to dealing with a very specific government model: bipartisan support for Israel. AIPAC never took sides in a debate because its sole role was to be a non-partisan voice for Israel. Whether it was dealing with Democrats or Republicans, it simply had to offer these politicians information about Israel.

AIPAC assiduously avoided partisan or controversial stands because its moral weight rested upon the fact that it was not a party organ but, instead, was always a conduit for information and good-will to flow between Israel and Congress as a whole. In other words, AIPAC could be Gandhi, because it was dealing with an “opponent” (if you consider the government as a whole as being in a slightly adversarial stance to lobbyists) that wasn’t actively hostile. Indeed, it was often quite friendly to and supportive of AIPAC’s goals.

Things are very different in Washington now, and AIPAC hasn’t caught up to that fact. The party that holds power in Washington is openly anti-Israel and increasingly antisemitic. This puts AIPAC in a bind. It’s one thing, after all, to advocate for Israel. It’s another thing to take a stand against the Democrat President’s cabinet choices — something that smacks of the partisanship AIPAC has always avoided.

Until AIPAC acknowledges that the old world is gone and that it’s dealing with a very different one (Dems will continue to be anti-Israel long after Obama has left the building), her voice will remain muted and ineffectual. What Hagel mistook for a nefarious “Jewish lobby” was, in fact, an organization that worked with politicians who already supported Israel, either for moral reasons or for Cold War reasons.

AIPAC didn’t control those politicians. It was their servant, not their master, since it enabled the politicians to carry out their own goals. With the Cold War over and the morality leeched out of public life, Washington, D.C., no longer has any use for AIPAC and the so-called “Israel lobby” is being kicked to the curb.

Obama is demagoguing the sequester like mad. David Angelo provides a pleasant breath of common sense:

Incidentally, to the extent Obama says that the sequester will result in federal prosecutors having to abandon cases, that may be a very good thing. The news lately has too many stories about federal prosecutors run amok. Here are just a handful of links:

The Democrats did what Republicans never do, which is to march in lockstep formation behind their leader even when he chose as Secretary of Defense a man with an IQ that doesn’t exceed the double digits, and a management history that proves his role model was the Pointy Haired Boss from the Dilbert cartoons.

We shouldn’t be surprised. The Democrats’ world outlook is collectivist, and they behave collectively. They have given their fealty to Obama. If he ordered them to drink Jim Jones’ Kool-Aid, jump off a cliff, or retire from politics en masse, they would obey. It doesn’t speak well of them that they subordinate their Creator-given gifts to party politics, but it does make them effective.

And then we have Republicans.

The problem with Republicans is that they’re individualists. Trying to get them to work together, even when pulling apart means sure death, is about as easy as herding cats. What’s worse is that they’re not cool, sophisticated, self-assured cats. Instead, they’re the dumb cats that John Hawkins describes:

Can you teach a cat to sit? To roll over? To come when it’s called? No, because cats are stupid. Granted, dogs are stupid, too, but they’re probably on the same level as your two-year old. A cat is closer in intelligence to a geranium — if a geranium had claws and a certain feral cunning it could use to track, torment, and kill smaller plants for its own amusement.

Hawkins had his tongue firmly in cheek when he wrote that. As for me, when I apply those words to the flailing Republicans in Washington, my tongue is nowhere near my cheek. Republican politicians are dumb. Really, really dumb.

I have a few words for these dummies. I applaud them for having the courage to run but that doesn’t make up for the fact that, once they get to Washington, the collapse in a spineless puddle the moment the drive-by media turns it sights on them.

Here’s the deal, doofuses (doofae?): Because the media will play everything and anything to make Obama look good and you look bad, stop trying to look good. You are the geeks in high school, the losers at the work place, the dork at the dance. No matter what happens, you will look stupid — in the short run.

But we smart people (and that group does not include you guys in D.C.) know that those high school geeks who stuck to their geek guns made smart decisions that made many of them rich and famous. We know that the smart losers in the work place left their cubicles behind and became successful consultants. And those dance floor dorks? They’re the ones who managed to avoid the vapid blonde with STDs and, instead, find pretty young women of substance.

You idiots. . . . Sorry, I mean you Republican politicians think you’re playing a long-term game that goes like this: “If we bend here, bow here, and scrape there, the new mandarins, especially in the media, will finally give us credit and the voters will support us.” Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

What you should be doing is stand up, vocally, for core conservative principles. If those reporters ask you about rape, ignore them. If they ask you about gay marriage, ignore them. Right now, the media is making these pressing issues only doing so is a cheap and easy way to appeal to people’s emotions and deflect attention from the fact that we, as a nation, are going broke. And you guys (and gals) let them get away with this shoddy tactic, simply because you’re so pathetically desperate for New York Times‘ approval.

If you were lucky enough to be a Republican who made it to (or stayed in) Congress, voters elected you pretty much for one reason: Fiscal responsibility. Even if the Tea Party candidates weren’t quite ready for prime time, it was the principles they asserted that created the wave that got you guys into office in 2010, and that kept some of you there in 2012.

So what should you be doing? You should be harping on fiscal responsibility. You should be screaming to the rafters at the way Obama is punishing ordinary citizens (e.g., releasing previously-arrested illegal aliens; threatening to make the TSA even worse; and threatening old people and children). You should be reminding them that Obama is lying about the sequester. It was his idea and it doesn’t cut past spending, but merely slows future spending.

Be loud in your conservative beliefs. Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, WaPo, NYT, NPR, and CNN are going to ream you a new one regardless. Stop making conservative bloggers do all the heavy lifting. All we can do is preach to the choir. If enough of you in Congress start making a loud noise, the media will have to report it. At the very least, do yourself the favor of going down like a man, or a woman, not a sniveling coward.

And speaking of sniveling cowards, those Republicans who cast a yea vote for Chuck Hagel are exactly that. Senators have a Constitutional duty to protect American citizens from a president who chooses a cabinet member who is manifestly unsuited for the post. Hagel’s testimony and the information that started surfacing about him established conclusively that he is mean-spirited and dumb as a rock.

Hagel is anti-Israel, even though Israel is our ally; pro-Iran, even though Iran is our enemy; hostile to the American armed forces, even though he’ll now be in charge of them; antisemitic, even though his baseless canards have their roots in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, rather than the real world; devious, as was shown by his prevaricating about his past and his refusal to release documents; and really, really, really stupid.

I guess it’s that last factor — his rank stupidity — that proves that, all of his other qualities to the contrary, Hagel can still call himself a Republican. Dems have turned on Israel, look longingly at Iran, hate the military, have a festering antisemitism in their ranks, and routinely lie about and hide information that Americans should know. But when it comes to butt-numbing stupidity, Republicans win, hands down. I guess you could call Hagel the double threat, seeing as he has the worst qualities of both parties.

I’m always a bridesmaid in these things, and never a bride, but I’m still beyond thrilled that John Hawkins included me as a nominee in the 11th Annual Blogger Awards for CPAC. I’m right there under “Best Kept Secret Award.” Indeed, right now, I’m so secret that the link is to my old WordPress blog. I sent a note to John about that, though, so I know it will be fixed soon.

I was also delighted to see that a lot of my blog friends got nominated too. I was especially happy to seeThe Mellow Jihadi as a People’s Choice nominee. Navy One has been a friend of this blog since before he started blogging, and he’s become one of my personal friends as well. I’m so delighted that he’s getting this kind of recognition.

Having acknowledged myself and my friends, let me say that John is spot-on in all of his selections. Each of the blogs named is a high quality blogs that deserves recognition for providing a true form of alternative media. If you blog, please consider broadcasting this list of nominees, since the more readership they get, the less believability the drive-by media gets.

The last thing left for me to do is to figure out how to lobby the CPAC voters for this one. I’ve got their beer and party favors all lined up…. 😉

We already know that Joe was telling women to break the law with his advice to fire a double-barreled shotgun in the air to frighten about bad guys. Would it surprise you to learn that his understanding of shotguns and AR-15s is also fatally, stupidly flawed? No, I didn’t think it would surprise you guys, but I bet you’ll still enjoy this video: